When do Jacaranda trees bloom?

Citizen science
Climate Change
Author

Olivia Torresan

Published

May 16, 2022

Citation

Garcia-Rojas, M. I., Keatley, M. R., & Roslan, N. (2023) Citizen science and expert opinion working together to understand the impacts of climate change. PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273822

Page info

Prepared by Olivia Torresan

Pictures of species are a valuable way of documenting how traits and characteristics vary in different locations and over time.

To understand how shifts in climate are influencing seasonal behaviour of Australia’s plants, Garcia-Rojas, Keatley & Roslan (2023) used images of Jacaranda trees (Jacaranda mimosifolia) to investigate how their flowering patterns might have changed across time. Using data from a decade-long citizen science program published to the Atlas of Living Australia, the authors used 11,578 Jacaranda sightings to calculate the time period and intensity of flowering from 2009 to 2019.

Jacaranda’s peak flowering was found to occur in December in Melbourne but in October in Perth and Sydney. With climate predicted to become warmer and drier, Jacaranda trees are likely to flower more intensely in Melbourne and Sydney as these climates become warmer, and may reduce in productivity in Perth.

Why does sydney differ to perth if they flower at the same time? Try to make clear how warmer and drier climate might affect Perth but not melbourne and sydney I don’t think that the first sentence in the final section is the main finding of the paper. Try to broaden this to help set up the second sentence